by Sarah Webb
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
To Alice Mount Stephens, my loyal reader and friend
Dear Reader,
Thank you for picking up Aurora and the Popcorn Dolphin. I’ve been fascinated by dolphins and whales for a long time. When I was nine I tried to teach myself how to speak humpback whale by listening to a record of their amazing song. Strange but true! The record came free with a copy of National Geographic magazine and it was one of my prized possessions. Every day after school I’d shut myself in my room and wail and moan like a humpback. My mum used to rush into my room, thinking I was ill. If you’ve ever heard a humpback whale singing, you’ll know why she thought that.
There are lots of dolphins in the waters around Ireland, which is where I live, and I’ve been lucky enough to see them on many occasions. I’ve seen whales, too, in both Ireland and New Zealand.
I had so much fun researching this book, and I learned a lot about sea mammals along the way. I used some of my (and Rory’s) favourite dolphin and whale facts to write the quiz at the back of this book. Do try it!
Rory, the main character, has a very special bond with dolphins. I hope you enjoy reading her story.
Best and many wishes,
Sarah XXX
Six months ago my life was perfect. I lived in a beautiful white house overlooking the harbour in Stony Brook, Long Island. I had tons of friends. I was captain of the school swim team. I went diving every weekend with my mom, helping with her dolphin research.
But then everything changed.
Today was the last day of summer term. I’m home from school now and I’m sitting in the kitchen with Magda, our housekeeper, watching her cream potato with the hand blender (yes, I’m that bored!) and listening to her humming away to herself, when Dad walks in. “Hey, kiddo,” he says. He always calls me that. It was cute when I was little, but now it’s kind of embarrassing.
“You’re early,” I say. Dad’s rarely home for dinner. He’s a marine biologist, and when he gets caught up in his work, he loses all track of time. He’s been working even harder over the last few months and I’ve barely seen him. “Bad day at the office?”
Dad laughs. “No. Wanted to see my favourite girl.”
“Your only girl,” I say, then quickly add, “Your only daughter”, when his face drops and I realize what I’ve said.
“So what’s for dinner, Magda?” he asks a little too brightly, ignoring my correction.
“Steak with peas and cream potato,” Magda says, “and vegetable lasagne for Rory. That good, Aidan?”
“Perfect,” Dad says, winking at me. “Gotta love your mashed potato, Magda.”
Magda serves mashed potato with everything – chicken, steak, pot pie, the works. I love Magda. She started off as my au pair, but now she pretty much runs the house. She’s from Slovakia and she’s always calling me “darling”, but she pronounces it “darlink”. She can always make me smile. Not as much as Mom did, though. Mom sure could make me grin.
Mom was hilarious, and I’d laugh so much at her jokes that I practically couldn’t breathe and my eyes would well up − like when she used to do crazy robot dancing in the kitchen or when she’d hold out her hand and say, “Shall we dance, Princess Aurora?” and she’d waltz me around the room. That’s my real name, Aurora. After I turned six or seven, Mom was the only person in the world I let call me that. To everyone else, I’m just plain old Rory.
Magda goes home after she’s served dinner. “See you tomorrow, darlink,” she says, giving me a hug. “Bye, Aidan.”
I hate it when she goes. Without her, the house always seems too quiet. Dad and I don’t chat much these days. We just concentrate on eating. Mom was the talker of the family, and she liked to catch up on all our news while we ate. Dad’s reserved and a bit awkward, I guess, like a grown-up geek. I’m never quite sure what’s going on in his head and lately I don’t know what to say to him either. Mom was the glue, sticking us all together. Without her, our tiny family of two just doesn’t seem to work.
“How was your last day of middle school, kiddo?” Dad asks as soon as we’ve finished our food.
“OK,” I say, shrugging. The last day of term was pretty uneventful. We had our graduation ceremony a week ago, which was meant to be the main celebration. Dad managed to miss it, though, as he’d gotten the time wrong. He didn’t show up until the end of the picnic. That would never have happened if Mom had been around.
Magda was at the ceremony with me. She gave me silver earrings in the shape of dolphins and made a fuss of me, but it wasn’t the same. I wish Mom had been there. It didn’t feel right without her. I think Dad felt the same way. He just stood under a tree, reading something on his cell the whole time and avoiding everyone.
My friends went shopping with their moms to find cute outfits for the ceremony. Dad offered to take me, but as we’ve never been shopping together before – he’s not that kind of dad − it would have been too weird. When Magda said she’d go with me, I told her I didn’t feel like it, and she understood. In the end, she went to the mall on her own and bought me a navy chiffon dress and silver shoes with a small heel. The shoes were too small and pinched my toes. But at least the hot red blisters gave me an excuse to go home early.
“Have you thought about how you’d like to spend the summer, kiddo?” Dad asks.
“Not really,” I say.
“Are you sure you don’t want to do swim camp this year?”
I nod firmly. “Positive.” I love swimming − gliding through the pool like a dolphin, the feel of the silky water against my skin − but Mom was the one who drove me to all the swim meets and cheered me on from the side. I can’t face going to camp this year without her around to pick me up after.
Dad looks sad.
“I’ll swim again in the fall,” I add quickly. “I’m not giving up. I’m just taking a break.”
“Okey-dokey. But you can’t sit around the house all day watching bad TV shows and eating junk. If you’re certain about swim camp then I have a plan. It may involve some dolphin-tracking, and I know how much you like that.”
I used to go diving all the time with my mom, to watch and research dolphin behaviour. Mom was a professor at North Shore University, in the School of Marine Sciences, and she knew everything there was to know about dolphin communication. She’d been studying it for years. There’s only one other person in the world who knows as much, and that’s Professor Aidan Kinsella, aka Dad. Lots of scientists are researching dolphins’ whistles and clicks and what they mean, but Mom wanted to take it a step further. She wanted to prove dolphins name things and “talk” to each other, like humans do, so she could show the world how smart they are. Most people thought she was crazy, but not me and Dad. In fact, Dad was helping by inputting her research into a computer called the D-com. They named it the dolphin dictionary. It’s an interactive index of whistles, clicks and body language that Mom had observed dolphins making.
“Where?” I ask him. “Florida?” We’ve been to Florida heaps of times for Mom and Dad’s work. There are lots of dolphins there. In Canada too. I’d be really keen to go dolphin-watching this summer. Dad hasn’t been doing much work on th
e dolphin dictionary since Mom died. It would be great if we could collect more data.
“East,” he says. “A lot further east.”
I think for a second, picturing a map of the world in my head. “Europe?”
Dad smiles. “Not just Europe, kiddo − Ireland. Mattie Finn, your mom’s cousin in West Cork, has invited us to stay. She’d like to meet us.”
“But the trip to Ireland was Mom’s idea!” I say. We’d been planning a big family vacation to Ireland for my thirteenth birthday in August. Mom was so excited. She’d just reconnected with her cousin Mattie, who she hadn’t heard from in years, and was really psyched about it. Mom hadn’t been to Ireland since her family emigrated to New York City when she was sixteen. She’d always meant to visit, but what with college and work and having me, she’d never gotten around to it. Mom had started telling me all about life in Ireland when she was a kid and about Mattie, her favourite cousin. She said she’d tell me more and show me her old photos before our trip. I wish now I’d asked her to do it right then and there. I wish I’d made the most of every minute we had together. We can’t visit Mom’s Irish relations without her, it wouldn’t be right.
“I know Ireland will be strange without your mom,” Dad says, reading my mind. “But Mattie got in touch and said why didn’t we come visit anyway? She really wants to meet us. We can leave it a couple of weeks, if you like, to let you get used to the idea. We don’t have to go immediately.”
“I don’t want to go at all without Mom.” My voice catches, but I’m determined not to cry. “Let me stay here, please? You go. I’ll be fine. Magda can look after me.”
Dad goes quiet for a long moment. Finally, he says, “I hear you, kiddo, honest I do. And I wish things could be different, but they’re not and we have to get on with life as best we can. The trip will be good for us − a change of scenery and all that. I think your mom would want us to go together.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and blink back my tears. He’s right. Mom was big into family trips − she would want us to go. “OK,” I say. “I guess we’re going to Ireland.” Then I say, remembering, “You said there are dolphins there. Can we take our dive stuff? And work on Mom’s dolphin dictionary?”
Dad looks awkward for a moment and then says, “We’ll see. I have some other research that I might need to get on with first.”
“Dad! The dictionary was so important to Mom. We have to keep working on it.”
“And we will, I promise, Aurora.”
I wince. It’s been years since he’s called me that and it sounds wrong. Also, talking about Mom and her research has upset me. “I’m tired,” I say. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
When I get to my room, I sit on the edge of my bed and take deep breaths, trying to stop the tears that are pricking my eyes. But it’s no use − they fall down anyway, hot and fast.
It’s been six months, two weeks and three days since Mom slipped on some ice on the sidewalk when she was walking home from the store. She smacked her head on the corner of a step and died of a brain haemorrhage. “A freak accident,” the doctor said. “Nothing anyone could have done.”
Since her death, I’ve found it difficult to care about anything or talk to people. It’s like there’s this sheet of glass between me and the rest of the world. Everything seems harder, even normal things like getting dressed in the morning.
Dad sent me to a counsellor for a few months. We talked about Mom and how sad and angry I felt that she’d been taken away from me. I’m not so angry any more, but I’m still sad – that hasn’t changed. I try not to say much about Mom now, especially to people I don’t know all that well. Talking about her, remembering how amazing she was, picturing her in my mind − her shining eyes, her wild curls, her lopsided smile − only makes me sadder. It hurts. Because you only get one mom and now mine’s gone.
Two weeks later, Dad is loading our luggage and his research equipment into the back of a taxicab. I’m glad he’s bringing so much stuff with him. We’ll need it all if we’re going to carry on Mom’s work. The driver’s helping Dad pack the car. We had to turn the last cab away as the trunk wasn’t big enough to hold it all. But this car is big, like its driver − a stocky, red-haired man with freckled upper arms so thick they look as though they’ll bust out of his short-sleeved shirt at any minute, like the Incredible Hulk.
I start to heave my case into the trunk, but Dad takes it out of my hand. “Easy there, kiddo. I’ll do it. You get in the back. Don’t forget your seat belt.” Since Mom’s accident, he’s been obsessed with safety.
“What’s in all the silver boxes, man?” I hear the cab driver ask as I climb into the back seat. “They’re seriously heavy.”
“An underwater computer, sound-recording equipment, a hydrophone,” Dad says. “Plus some other things. Just your average vacation luggage.”
“Yeah, right,” the man says. “You some sort of rock star?”
People often ask Dad this, especially when he’s not wearing his reading glasses. It’s the long, sun-bleached hair and the deep tan from being on the water. He usually says, “No, but I’m friends with one – a world-renowned geology professor called Gregor, who studies meteorites!” It’s a terrible science-geek joke, which proves how uncool Dad really is.
This time he just laughs. “Marine biologist,” he says.
The man looks unimpressed. “You study fish and stuff in the wild?”
“Sea mammals,” Dad says. “Dolphins. But I’m mostly involved in the techie side of things these days.”
The man nods. “My kids, they like that dolphin stuff. SeaWorld. Flipper.”
I shudder. I hate those places.
“Flipper, sure,” Dad says, catching my eye. He hates SeaWorld too, but I guess he’s keeping quiet because he doesn’t want to start an argument this early in the day.
Wild animals, especially super-smart ones like dolphins and orcas, shouldn’t be taken away from their families when they’re babies and kept in tanks and made to entertain dumb tourists. It’s not right, and it sends them crazy.
Years ago, when she was at college, Mom studied captive dolphins at an aquarium for her marine-science course and realized that they were all making the same low, flat whistle − a sound that wild dolphins don’t make unless they are resting or on their own. She figured out this was their “bored” whistle. She also told me about how orcas’ dorsal fins curl over in captivity. Orcas are also called killer whales − but they don’t kill people, not in the wild, anyway.
Once the trunk is loaded, we pull away from the house.
“So where are you good people off to this fine morning?” the cab driver asks.
“Ireland,” Dad says. “Visiting relatives.”
The man chuckles. “No kidding! I’m Irish. My grandfather came from County Kerry.”
“My great-grandfather was from County Galway,” Dad says. And they’re off, swapping stories about their family roots.
I stare out the passenger window at the homes and shops we pass on our way out of Stony Brook, trying not to think about Mom and how we’re leaving her behind.
Dad and I don’t talk much on the flight from New York to Dublin. He tries to get me to chat, but I don’t feel like it. I know I should be excited about visiting Ireland, but I’m in a funny mood, flat and low. I don’t feel ready to visit Mom’s family without her. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. But it’s happening now, whether I like it or not.
It’s an overnight flight and I manage to sleep for a couple of hours and doze the rest of the time. We arrive in Dublin airport at eight a.m. local time, stiff and tired. After collecting our baggage – which takes ages because of all Dad’s research equipment – we step out of the airport building into the fresh, cold air. I had no idea it would be so freezing. My toes are turning into popsicles in my flip-flops. Dad was right to nag me to pack all those fleeces. At least it’s not raining. I forgot to pack the rain jacket Magda bought me. It was hard to
say goodbye to her. She gave me a big hug, saying, “I will miss you, darlink. Take care of each other, understand? I will see you soon.”
“Here we are,” Dad says. “Ireland. Pretty, isn’t it?”
We’re standing in front of a large concrete multi-storey car park.
“OK, maybe not that particular building,” he adds quickly.
We pick up our hire car – an old navy Land Rover – and then drive through Dublin. The city is small, and there are no skyscrapers like in American cities, but the old stone buildings and the metal humpback bridge across the river are − yes, I have to admit − pretty. But it’s all so grey: the buildings, the shops and even the sky, although there are patches of pale blue behind the clouds. Still, it’s supposed to be summer!
We stop off at a store in the city centre to collect extra diving gear, filling the jeep with yellow dive tanks and attaching a large orange RIB – rigid inflatable boat – to our tow hitch. It’s the kind of boat with a solid hull and bouncy rubber sides.
Dad hooks his iPhone up to the jeep’s stereo and clicks on a Garth Brooks song.
I groan. “Dad!” He doesn’t even like country music.
He grins. “What do you want to listen to then?”
I shrug. “Something Irish.”
“U2?” he suggests. “They’re from Dublin.”
“Fine. Or how about something from this century, like Hozier? He’s Irish.”
“You like Hozier? I didn’t know that. Me too.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. I’m full of secrets,” I say.
“An international woman of mystery?” he says with a smile. That’s from Austin Powers. He loves old comedy movies. Action movies, too.
I laugh, and just like that the tension between us starts to melt. “Sorry about yesterday,” I say. “I just wasn’t in the humour for talking.”
“I hear you, kiddo. I get like that myself sometimes. Don’t worry about it.”
The drive to West Cork, where Mom’s relations live, takes for ever. Luckily, I sleep across the rear seat for most of the journey down the highway. Dad insists I wear my seat belt, so it is twisted around me awkwardly.